Cheerilee's Thousand

by xjuggernaughtx


Date Thirty-Eight - Disenchanted

Cheerilee yanked the highball glass away just before the blue hoof came down. Sliding the glass down the bar, she glared up at the unicorn. “Would you please get down! You’re making a spectacle of yourself!”

Trixie threw her head back and laughed. Or, she tried to. Halfway through it, she hiccupped and stumbled, lurching to the side. Pinwheeling, Trixie searched for something to grab a hold of.

Top Shelf rushed to keep her from falling. “Ladies, please! If you can’t control yourselves, you’re going to have to leave!”

“Why would The Great and Powerful Trixie leave the stage?” Overcorrecting, Trixie slipped on a cherry and sat down hard. Nearby, a blank-faced stallion applauded slowly. “Of course Trixie is making a spectacle of herself. She is a spectacle! The spectacle!” Raising her heavily-slurred voice, she twisted in a half circle and threw her hooves over her head. “Remember this night, for you will be telling your foals about it. ‘I saw The Great and Powerful Trixie perform feats of such wonder—’”

A passing bar back slammed down several empty mugs on to the bar beside the unicorn. “It’d be a wonder if you’d perform the amazing feat of buttoning your lip for a while.”

Top Shelf glared at him. Pursing his lips, he set the mugs onto a battered cart. “Would you be careful with this stuff? It’s glass, and I’m not made of bits.”

The bar back chewed his lip for a moment and then nodded. “Sorry, boss. It’s just—”

“Oh, I know,” Top Shelf turned to give Cheerilee a meaningful glance. “Some ponies...”

Cheerilee could feel her neck flush as she looked back and forth between the two angry stallions. “What? You think I had something to do with this?”

“Everypony, watch—oof.” Trixie tried to jump to her hooves, but missed the bar with two of her legs. Sprawling, she sent a bowl of pretzels flying. Giggling, she readjusted and slowly rose. Nearby ponies pulled their drinks protectively toward themselves as she wavered uncertainly. “Watch as The Great and Powerful Trixie astounds with her unparalleled magical skill!” Her unfocused eyes swam as she squinted at a bowl of lemon wedges. Taking a deep breath, the unicorn aimed and fired a glowing beam at the bowl.

“Whoa!” A rosy-cheeked mare skipped away from the bar as the beam slammed into the bar, leaving a small scorch mark. “Watch it!”

Screwing her face up, Trixie fired again. The bowl exploded.

Trixie bowed, smiling. “You see? Nopony can compare with The Great and Powerful Trixie, Equestia’s premiere unicorn.”

Beside the sound of several lemon wedges slowly peeling away from the ceiling and plopping to the floor, the bar was silent. Finally, the blank-faced stallion began his sarcastic clap again. “Wow. Amazing.”

Sighing, Top Shelf picked up one of the pint glasses and wiped it off with a rag. “Look, Cheerilee, I’m sorry. I tried. After your buddy ran through the wall—”

Cheerilee clenched her jaw. “I already told you that it was some kind of attack robot!”

The stallion rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever. It still cost me five hundred bits to fix that hole, and now you’re here with your new sweetheart causing trouble again. I like you, Cheerilee, but you’re going to have to go.” Top Shelf bit his lip and looked away. “Sorry, that’s how it is.”

Cheerilee stared into her glass and wondered again why she’d agreed to this in the first place. Sure, the mare was attractive, but when she’d declared that she would be honoring Cheerilee with a life-altering date with Equestria’s most talented magician, Cheerilee had convinced herself that it was some sort of cute act the mare had been putting on. It hadn’t been. A single drink had transformed her from a slightly eccentric and somewhat conceited pony into a raving lunatic.

Snatching a pint glass from a sputtering stallion, Trixie’s magic held it slightly over her head. The bar watched with vague interest while it dipped and wavered, seemingly on the edge of dropping to the floor. “Steel yourselves, ponies, as Trixie makes the contents of this glass… disappear!” Opening her mouth wide, she tossed the glass back.

The room groaned as cider shot past her head and onto the rows of distilled alcohol behind her. Smacking her lips, Trixie slammed the glass back into the stallion’s hooves and took a bow.

The bar back stopped to stare at Cheerilee for a moment before shaking his head and collecting a few more empty glasses from the nearby tables.

Dropping to her stomach, Trixie sent out a questing hoof out to search for the floor. Three or four exploratory pokes later, she finally found it. With a grin, she slid off the bar and staggered back to where Cheerilee was gathering her things. “Trixie has astounded you. She can read an audience like the back of her hoof.”

Cheerilee tightened the cinch on her saddleback with far more force than it require. “Oh, I’m astounded all right. You’ve—”

“You see?” Trixie threw her hoof around Cheerilee’s shoulder and twisted, turning them both toward the rest of the bar’s patrons. “She admits it, and soon all of Ponyburg—”

“Ponyville,” Cheerilee growled.

Trixie shrugged. “Whatever. Very soon, all of you will have the opportunity to witness the peerless prowess of The Great and Powerful Trixie! For tonight, in your small-ish town square, Trixie will captivate and befuddle! There, with her barely adequate assistant, she will—”

Cheerilee batted the hoof from her shoulder. “I’m not your assistant, in fact—”

Trixie grinned, stepping in close. “Trixie sees. You're upset because The Great and Powerful Trixie hasn’t given you a kiss yet, aren’t you? Understandable that you would be burning for a taste, for not only is Trixie the most magical of unicorns, but she’s also the most romantic!”

Cheerilee thrust a hoof against the advancing unicorn’s forehead while several ponies began to whistle and catcall. “What is wrong with you? Would you back off?”

Trixie leaned against the hoof, her puckered lips leading the way.

The bar back walked by and sniggered. “Now this is a performance I can get behind! Top, we should get this kind of—ughf!”

Cheerilee’s other hoof pistoned out and she snatched the bar back’s mane. Growling, she pressed their faces together. “You want a show? There you go. She’s all yours.”

The bar back’s eyes widened as Trixie threw her hooves around his neck, tightening the embrace. Cheerilee winced as several vertebrae in his back popped. The bar back’s hooves scrambled across the wooden floor as he fought to regain his equilibrium.

Trixie opened her eyes, and gasped. Pulling away, she looked from the bar back to Cheerilee and back again, before shrugging. The bar back managed a single strangled syllable before the unicorn was on him again.

Hooking her saddlebags with a hoof, Cheerilee swung them onto her back. Pushing open the door, she glanced at Top Shelf over her shoulder. “Tell her that it’s her job to make the tab disappear.”